We Don't Need to Whisper

We Don't Need to Whisper

Angels and Airwaves’ Tom DeLonge spent most of his 20s earning millions as a surrogate teen in blink-182 — the pop-punk trio that reveled in its bratty faux adolescence. Now that blink’s on hiatus, he’s free to explore the influences — the Cure, War-era U2, Pink Floyd — that the band began to move toward on its almost-all-grown-up 2003 self-titled CD. If only DeLonge’s nasal vocals on We Don’t Need to Whisper were more suited to the Robert Smith romanticism of tracks like ”It Hurts”; unfortunately, he often sounds like a high school kid working the drive-through mic at Del Taco.